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New film: "Captain Phillips"

Sympathy for the devil

Oct 18th 2013, 13:18by N.B.

“CAPTAIN PHILLIPS", Paul Greengrass's harrowing new true-life thriller, takes its name from its lead character, as played by Tom Hanks. But a more appropriate title might have been “The Captain” or even “The Captains”, plural. The hero is Rich Phillips, the veteran captain of an American cargo ship which was raided by a band of Somali pirates in 2009. His bravery, professionalism, and quick-thinking are impressive. But the film pays almost as much attention to Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse (Barkhad Abdi), the shrewd teenaged pirate who declares himself to be “the captain” when he boards Phillips’s vessel.

Mr Greengrass and his screenwriter, Billy Ray, are eager to draw parallels between the two combatants in the narrative’s battle-of-wits. The film opens with Phillips at home in Vermont, as he grumbles to his wife (Catherine Keener) about the straitened economy which is forcing him to go to sea yet again. We then cut to a slum village in Somalia, where Muse is bullied into piracy by the local warlord’s assault rifle-toting goons. “I got bosses,” Muse says later, when he’s justifying his crimes. “We all got bosses,” mutters Phillips in reply.

We are led to understand that both men are following the only economic path left open to them. When Phillips informs Muse that his cargo ship is carrying 200 tonnes of food for starving Africans, Muse replies that if foreigners hadn’t over-fished Somali waters, their charity wouldn’t be needed.

The film’s sympathy for its antagonist extends beyond the sometimes-clumsy dialogue to its never-clumsy visuals. Mr Greengrass is currently the world’s most influential action director, having established a trademark combination of darting camerawork, split-second editing and documentary-like naturalism on “The Bourne Supremacy”, a spy film starring Matt Damon, and “United 93”, a nerve-jangling dramatisation of a 9/11 hijacking. This much-imitated style is at its most breathtaking in “Captain Phillips” during the sequence when the pirates close in on the cargo vessel. They may be preying on unarmed civilians, but they are also four young men dressed in rags, who have driven hundreds of miles from shore in a tiny motorboat. When they manage to hook a ladder over the side of this colossal ship, it is impossible not to feel some respect for their Errol Flynn-worthy daring and athleticism, even as we fear for the lives of the crew on board. Later, when the pirates are crammed into a tiny orange lifeboat in the shadow of a vast American warship, the effect instantly evokes the story of David and Goliath. Some viewers may find themselves forgetting, however momentarily, that the outnumbered and outgunned Somalis are the bad guys.

Still, Mr Greengrass is skilled enough to have it both ways. He ensures that the audience appreciates Muse’s desperate plight, but he keeps us rooting for Phillips. How can we not, when Phillips is played by Tom Hanks? At times, Mr Hanks’ now-you-hear-it-now-you-don’t Massachusetts twang is distracting, but his aura of avuncular decency reminds us why he has long been Hollywood’s most beloved everyman. His final improvised scene is so heart-wrenching that it could well secure him another Oscar nomination. Even then, though, at the very end of Mr Greengrass’s riveting film, many of us will experience a twinge of pity for its other captain, too.